The NIH is building a massive dataset that aims to get a broad range of patients, but there are questions about who will benefit from the medical advances that result — Miriam Gonzalez initially saw the posters around the hospital where she worked. They depicted a diverse range of people that actually represented the American population — not something she usually saw in medical ads. They were promoting a new initiative by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) called the All…

Vast banks of medical data are slowly being digitized, allowing A.I. to address the growing demand for pathologists — If you became concerned about a mole on your back — perhaps it had become painful or looked unsightly — your doctor might decide to remove it and have it evaluated. She’d send it to a pathology lab, where a sample of the tissue would be prepared in the form…

As marijuana becomes legal across the U.S., small growers will need to innovate to survive — Where there’s profit to be made, there’s corporate greed. And the weed industry, which is inching toward legalization throughout the United States, is no exception. The market for legal weed is projected to hit $31.4 billion by 2021, according to a recent report from the Brightfield Group, a research firm…

Clumsy decisions made by software are leading to calls for automation to be audited — Elizabeth Brico’s daughters were removed from her custody in April 2018, in part, she believes, because of an algorithm. Brico was living with her in-laws in Florida while her husband grappled with mental health issues. While they didn’t always get along, a tense peace had held. …

In the age of information manipulation, a new voice editing technology could present mounting security challenges — When Adobe Photoshop first debuted, it looked like magic. The ability to seamlessly alter photos gave graphic designers a life-changing tool, but it wasn’t long before users started to use the product for more nefarious purposes. …

How Face ID affects the Fifth Amendment and opens the door for law enforcement to have easier access to your phone — By now, you’re likely familiar with the iPhone X’s ability to use facial recognition technology to unlock your phone with “just a look.” You’ve also probably seen the commercials where “animojis” (Apple’s animated emojis) jam out to Big Boi’s “All Night,” perfectly matching their owners’ facial expressions. …

How Amazon and Google’s big bets on the smart speaker market affect their customers’ privacy — Speech recognition technology and the voice user interfaces (VUIs) we use to engage with it have gotten so good that they now make errors only about 5.5 percent of the time. That’s about the same error rate as a human. And this speech recognition technology has advanced rapidly — particularly…

How airports and DHS are using facial recognition on travelers — A crucial step has been added to international travel. If you aren’t a U.S. citizen, you might need more than just your documents in these 10 airports: Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Logan in Boston, O’Hare in Chicago, Hobby and George Bush in Houston, McCarran in Las Vegas, Miami International, John F…

The Army Research Laboratory’s plan to use human brains to train machines — The human brain is responsible for making us adaptable and widespread — a singularly adept instrument to help humans survive and thrive. Even as artificial intelligence quickly progresses, when it comes to military conflicts, people still outpace robots in crucial split-second decision-making. …